LSSU's Banished Words of the Year

Every year since 1976, Lake Superior State University has released a “List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness” on New Year's Day. While the school cheerfully admits that the tongue-in-cheek tradition is meant to draw publicity to Michigan's smallest public university, the list is widely enjoyed, and hundreds of nominations are received every year.

LSSU's Banished Words: 2015

BAE

Polar vortex

Hack

Skill set

Swag

Foodie

Curate/curated

Friend-raising

Cra-cra

Enhanced interrogation

Takeaway

-nation

LSSU's Banished Words: 2014

Selfie

Twerk/twerking

Hashtag

Twittersphere

Mister mom

T-bone

_______on steroids

-ageddon (car-ageddon, budget-ageddon, etc.)

-pocalypse (see above)

Intellectually/morally bankrupt

Obamacare

Adversity

Fan base

LSSU's Banished Words: 2013

Fiscal cliff

Kick the can down the road

Double down

Job creators/creation

Passion, passionate

YOLO

Spoiler alert

Bucket list

Trending

Superfood

Boneless wings

Guru

LSSU's Banished Words: 2012

Amazing

Baby bump

Shared sacrifice

Occupy

Blowback

Man cave

The new normal

Pet parent

Win the future

Trickeration

Ginormous

Thank you in advance

LSSU's Banished Words: 2011

Viral

Epic

Fail

WOW factor

A-ha moment

Back story

BFF

Man up

Refudiate

Mama grizzlies

The American people

I'm just sayin'

Facebook/google as verbs

Live life to the fullest

LSSU's Banished Words: 2010

Shovel-ready – ready to implement or begin

Transparent/transparency

Czar

Tweet

App

Sexting

Friend as a verb

Teachable moment

In these economic times...

Stimulus

Toxic Assets

Too big to fail

Bromance – a friendly relationship between two men

Chillaxin'

Obama as prefix– Obamanation, Obamacare

LSSU's Banished Words: 2009

Green

Carbon footprint/carbon offsetting

Maverick

First dude

Bailout

Wall Street/Main Street

-monkey – adding "monkey" to the end of a word to make it more attractive and interesting

<3 – in electronic communication, resembles a heart, used to mean "love"

Icon/iconic

Game changer

Staycation

Desperate search

Not so much

Winner of five nominations

It's that time of year again

LSSU's Banished Words: 2008

Perfect Storm

Webinar — a seminar on the web about multiple topics

Waterboarding

Organic

Wordsmith/Wordsmithing

Post 9/11

Surge

Give back

Black Friday— referring to the day after Thanksgiving that retailers use to keep themselves out of the 'red' for the year.

Back in the day

Sweet

Decimate

Emotional

Pop

It is What it is

Under the bus

LSSU's Banished Words: 2007

GITMO — military shorthand for the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base

Combined Celebrity Names — e.g., Bennifer, TomKat, Bragelina

Awesome — diluted from its meaning of “inspiring awe”

Gone/Went Missing

Pwn or Pwned — gamer slang for “own,” originally a typo

Now Playing in Theaters

We're Pregnant

Undocumented Alien

Armed Robbery / Drug Deal Gone Bad

Truthiness — coined by Stephen Colbert as the quality possessed by a belief one feels is true, in defiance of facts or logic